Republican Mitt Romney has been forced to take a more aggressive tack after blow-back from his “47 percent” comments on a secretly recorded video released last week. Polls show him losing ground to President Barack Obama in some battleground states.

But those “reset” efforts may not be in vain, one of his top campaigners said.

“We had a bad week — if the election were going to be held tomorrow that would be a problem, but there’s a lot of ground to cover in the next 42 days,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who’s been in-demand as a fundraiser and campaign surrogate, told reporters today after breaking ground on an elementary school in Long Branch. “I don’t think we need to overreact on this.”

Christie, 50, turned down entreaties by Republican politicians and some business executives last year to make his own run for the White House. He was also the first sitting governor to line up behind Romney at the time. He said he spoke to Romney by phone yesterday but declined to elaborate on the discussion.

Romney is trying to regain momentum and assure the Republican establishment that the election isn’t turning against him, as he promised to spend more time with voters and less raising cash. Last week proved to be an especially rough one for the former Massachusetts governor, when Mother Jones magazine posted the video from a May 17 fundraiser on its Web site showing Romney saying 47 percent of Americans are government-dependent “victims.” He also dismissed hope a peace accord between Israel and Palestinians.